Late Night With Jimmy Fallon is by far the nerdiest late night show on network television. Our Twittering, video-blogging host has welcomed tech bloggers and Diggnation dudes as headlining guests; he’s showcased the latest gadgets—from XBox 360’s wireless controller to the Palm Pre—on his show. With the help of Fallon’s co-producer, G4-TV Attack of the Show! vet Gavin Purcell, Late Night is courting that hyper-connected millenial audience—and they’re watching.
So what kind of dorky hijinks was Jimmy the geek up to last night (Wednesday, June 17th)?
Today weather guy Al Roker plopped down on the Late Night chair (with fist bumps galore!) to chat about his recent on-air run-in with “Speidi.” Jimmy seemed to be on Twitter patrol, scolding Mr. Roker’s post-interview tweet: “Heidi and Spencer are an interesting couple. famous for … being infamous. Bad and vacuous behavior. I think we’re at minute 11 of their 15,” and mentioned Mr. Roker’s posted pic of a crowd in a jury duty waiting room. “You can’t do that Al!” Jimmy said. “That’s insane! Don’t you know the rules?” O.K., Twitter narc!
Next up, Gary Vaynerchuk, the tech world’s most enthusiastic wine guru, personal branding evangelist and Wine Library TV host, taught Jimmy how to give a “sniffy sniff” and a swirl to compare $8 and $80 wines. “I follow you on Twitter!” Jimmy said. “Do you follow Roker?” before noting his glass of wine smelled like “urine.” Mr. Vaynerchuk (who hosted a viewing party at Lucky Strike lanes on West 42nd Street last night for his big Late Night debut) said its scent was more like “the golden locks of Zach Morris’ hair.”
“This is an awesome party, dude,” Jimmy said, before spitting some wine into a bucket.
Finally, Engadget blogger Joshua Topolsky came on (again!) in a snooze-inducing segment to introduce the iPhone 3G S and to show how to shoot and edit videos, copy and paste text and graphics, and search for stuff (Oooooo!) with the device. They first showed a lame clip of Jimmy air-punching Mr. Topolsky backstage because he didn’t bring him the new version of the iPhone (a lone audience member gave a few claps after it aired). “No one would ever download that on the Internet at all,” Jimmy said. You said it!
So how did Jimmy do? Here’s the score:
Geekiness factor (out of five): 4.5
Good-television factor (out of five): 2
Total: 6.5. In other words, what’s good for the nerds may not be good for your average viewer.
